


Failure to Thrive

by TheIcyQueen



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Gen, mentions of childhood trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-05
Updated: 2019-01-05
Packaged: 2019-10-04 23:55:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17314190
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheIcyQueen/pseuds/TheIcyQueen
Summary: Even and Aeleus come to terms with the fact that they may be the closest thing to family that Ienzo has. Unfortunately, it might be too little, too late.





	Failure to Thrive

Even had a name for it, and it was non-organic failure to thrive. He cited books and articles and ticked symptoms off on the fingers of both hands. And while Aeleus pointed out that the child was  _hardly_  an infant, his voice was easily enough ignored.  
  
The child, Even pointed out, was too small for his age. The child did not exhibit emotional responses. The child avoided eye contact. The child  _did not speak_.  
  
The  _child_ , Aeleus reminded him, was named Ienzo, and he had just lost both of his parents.  
  
But Even was a scientist who spoke well and often, while Aeleus was a Guard who spoke softly and rarely. And it was just easier to place the blame on two corpses than it was to consider that it was simply the boy’s nature.  
  
—-  
  
Even decided he was interested in the boy when he started to speak.   
  
There was no logical explanation for Ienzo’s diction, his vocabulary, or syntax. There was no diagnosis or disorder he could assign it…it simply  _was_. Ienzo spoke in strong, well-formed sentences, used words larger than he was, but he understood even more. He was intriguing, if not unnerving.  
  
He had a learning curve that shouldn’t have existed, and his intelligence thrived in the chill of the labs like mold in damp. Even thrust books and papers and graphs in front of him, gave him answers to questions never asked, found him a white coat that had run a bit small.  
  
Age no longer came into play, lest there were reprimands to be delivered. Even spoke to Ienzo as an academic to a fellow, treated him as someone of his own salt. He did not accept childhood indiscretions or pouting. And when Ienzo took to wandering off—meandering through the castle, strolling through the town square, lurking around the fountains—he reminded him firmly that he was a genius, a  _prodigy_ , and a mind like his was a terrible thing to waste.   
  
—-  
  
Aeleus was dispatched when he started disappearing.  
  
He would always find him alone, isolated but  _watching_. Ienzo had a sharpness in his eyes, something cold, something horrible to see in someone still so young. He was only a  _child_ , despite what the others thought; he was a child who had been losing loved ones and changing hands since the moment he’d come into the world. And so Aeleus’ heart went out to him.   
  
Ienzo was quiet and frail and  _sad_ , intelligence quotient aside. He had the mind of a scholar and the body of a sickly child, the two constantly at odds. Aeleus stopped escorting him back to the labs, after a while. Ienzo had texts and Ienzo had charts, but Ienzo was in sore need of a friend.  
  
So when he’d find him navigating the busy city center, he’d simply shadow him at a safe distance and let him be a child. And if anyone back at the castle would raise their voice and demand where they’d gone off to, leaving their posts unattended, he’d simply usher Ienzo back into the door with a curt shrug or grunt, perhaps hiding winning ice cream sticks in the cuff of his sleeve, still stained blue.  
  
—-  
  
When they fell—and they fell  _so_  spectacularly—they fell in the labs built on Ienzo’s command. His intellect and prestige, his honeyed words and accomplishments had written their death warrants. But still Even watched Ienzo’s movements, traced his words, heard his strained laughter, and recognized it as his own. And when Ienzo began to slip, Aeleus was quick to grab for him, unaware of the claws that gripped him back until far too late.  
  
But who did they have to blame, if not themselves?

**Author's Note:**

> Reupload from 8/16/13.


End file.
